


What Will You Be

by DallyDaydream



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-06 20:23:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14655498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DallyDaydream/pseuds/DallyDaydream
Summary: Addison Barlow, sole survivor of Vault 111, discovers the fate of her son, and must come to terms with what that means.





	What Will You Be

It was all a haze.

“You want me to stay here? In the Institute?”

The old man… Shaun...

_God, Shaun…_

Shaun smiled warmly, and Addison could see a little of Nate in that smile, and felt her heart contract.

“The Institute can provide a better life than anything above ground.”

Addison’s lips formed around an argument she couldn’t quite find the strength to vocalise. Catching this, Shaun raised his hands a little, a gesture of gentle placation.

“I simply ask that you give the Institute… me… a chance. A chance to show you what I’ve been telling you. We really do have humanity’s best interest at heart.” He looked at her with such earnest eyes. A child asking his parent to believe in him. In that instant he looked so much younger. “Will you take that chance?”

Addison closed her mouth again, unwilling to let anything spill out before she had thought it over. This was such a precarious situation. She blinked hard, unwilling to let out tears in front of this… complete stranger. She had prepared herself to find Shaun changed, unfamiliar. He was meant to be ten years old, after all. There was always bound to be adjustment required when she finally found him.

But this…

And it was all so much more goddamn one-sided than she had anticipated. This was no longer the case of a desperate mother reuniting with her lost child. Shaun was neither a child nor confused. He knew… everything. And he had just waited. Waited to see what she would do. Her son was in control of this situation. He had been from the moment she staggered out of the cryo pod.

And he knew, he had to know, that she couldn’t trust the Institute. That he asked for a chance betrayed both that he understood her reservations, but also that he failed to realise their extent.

These people kept slaves. They could justify it all they wanted by claiming artificial life didn’t count, but if a person could feel, if they could yearn for freedom, then as far as Addison was concerned, they were real. Conscious. Sapient. Whatever the term was… Addison had majored in law, not philosophy.

But she knew she stood here looking at a man who placed no value on the life of people like Nick, or Glory, or… possibly Deacon (dear god, she could never tell with Deacon). And surely, if he’d been having her observed, he would realise that she cared about them, regardless of whether they were organic or synthetic, wouldn’t he?

After several moments had passed, she carefully asked, “Are you sure you want this?”

Shaun required no such hesitation. “Yes, I am. It would benefit us both to work together.”

Addison shook her head a little, but in confusion rather than as a negative response. How could he be so certain of this?

She reminded herself how much time he’d had to plan things out while she had been on ice. He probably thought he was accounting for every variable.

He probably assumed he knew his own mother. But right now, her worldview was so shaken that Addison barely even knew herself. “I just… don’t know.”

“Just… give it time,” Shaun told her. His voice reminded her of Nate’s. Comforting, gentle, patient. Those times when he was deployed, knowing how hard for her it was to adapt to him being gone, to the fear of losing him forever, but believing in her strength to carry on without him, one way or another. “Give the Institute a chance.” _Give me a chance_ , he seemed to repeat silently.

“Shaun…” she said quietly, trying the name out on her tongue, seeing how foreign it felt when applied to this grey-haired stranger. He waited to see if there was anything else forthcoming. Addison closed her eyes again. After everything else she had been through, this was too big a question to answer today. He knew that, at least.

Everything was different. The Institute was opening its arms to her. Her son was a grown man.

Her son…

A tear slipped free and she hastily wiped it away. She focused on the one thing she could say that was true.

“I missed you.”

When she opened her eyes, she could see Shaun’s warm brown eyes shining with tears as well. He stepped forward tentatively, offering up his arms. “I missed you too, Mom.”

She stepped forward to meet him and enveloped her son in a hug. She allowed herself that. To hold him tight, and let the tears fall, as she always knew she would when she finally found him. But she didn’t say anything else.

Shaun seemed to understand all too well that his mother was emotionally overwhelmed, and made his next priority showing her to a room she could stay in while she acclimatised. “The Institute is your home now as much as it is mine,” he told her. “Please, take some time and get to know it. Meet the people you’ll be working with.” She stood numbly in the doorway of her new accommodation, letting his words wash over her without properly absorbing them. “They’ve all been informed of your arrival, of course. Meet them, and then we’ll discuss what comes next.” Shaun hovered for a moment, then briefly laid a comforting hand on Addison’s shoulder before he withdrew from the room to give her some space.

This was all a lot to take in, after all.

Addison lost track of how long she stood there, slumped with her back against the door, but it was long enough for the darkness pooling in the room to settle into her vision. She knew rationally that her eyes were adjusting to the dark (she hadn’t bothered to turn the lights on), but it felt more like she was sinking into it. Staring into the dark, into the nothing, into…

_“He looks so much like you, Nate.”_

Her eyelids drooped. Now wasn’t a good time to remember. But she did, all the same.

She and Nate were sitting on the couch after dinner, a sleepy baby nestled in her arms, squirming around, waving his little arms in defiance. “I’m not tired,” he seemed to say, right before blinking his big, beautiful brown eyes and stretching out his tiny mouth in a yawn. Addison smiled helplessly, utterly head over heels for her little boy.

“He looks so much like you, Nate,” she cooed.

“Poor kid.” Nate managed to sound flippant, but a quick glance at him confirmed he was similarly spell bound. Addison’s smile widened and she nudged her shoulder into his.

“Shut your mouth! He’s beautiful. Just like you.”

Nate laid a placating kiss on her cheek. “He’s got your eyes, though. Your smile.”

“You think?” She looked down at Shaun almost appraisingly, holding out a finger for him to grab onto. He did, with that surprisingly strong baby grip. He had always been a beautiful baby, of course, and they’d both admired his perfect little face countless time before, but over time his features were evolving from soft and undefined to something they could start to see themselves in.

“Yeah, he gets the same crinkle in his nose when he laughs, see?” Nate wiggled his fingers against his son’s belly, causing him to giggle. “Don’t you, little guy?”

She could about see it, though really, Nate saw her more often than she saw herself, so she was content to take his word for it. Thinking about it, he was a complete blend of the two of them. Her brown eyes and puckered smile, maybe, but the wide set of his nose and brows favoured Nate, as did his crop of black hair. And his skin, a darker shade of brown than hers, but lighter than his father’s. Addison wondered idly for a moment whether he might get a smattering of freckles like hers as he got older.

Getting older… She let out a puff of breath at the thought. “God… He’s not gonna be little for long, is he? Not that long ‘till his first birthday…”

“Ha, better make the most of him being small and cute now then, huh? He’ll be all grown up before you know it.”

“There’s a thought. Hey.” She leaned into him, pulling Shaun more snugly against her as she did so. The baby’s head rested on her shoulder, and hers rested on Nate’s. She loved having them both close like this. Her two best boys. “What d’you suppose he’ll be like when he grows up, honey?”

She could feel Nate chuckling indulgently against the crown of her head as he nuzzled her. “If we do our jobs right? I’m hoping he’ll be just like his mom.”

In the present, Addison blinked to refocus herself on her surroundings, and took a second to realise that doing so released the hot tears she hadn’t noticed building up in her eyes. Gingerly, she felt for the door behind her with her hands, and slowly slid down until she was sitting on the floor.

Being so hellbent on finding Shaun, it dawned on her, was perhaps the one thing keeping her from spiralling into despair over all she had lost. And now that she had found him…

Addison curled in upon herself, hugging her knees to her chest, trying desperately to banish the thought of Nate’s loving smile, of all their hopes and dreams for raising a family, raising Shaun… But the memories wouldn’t be ignored anymore, because now, they were all she had of her family.

Because her son…

She thought of Shaun as he was now, the distinguished older gentleman, all courtesy and warmth and reason and intellect and fanaticism and paranoia and bigotry.

And unable to keep it in anymore, Addison broke down into sobs.

Her son was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> My heart up and broke when I got to this plot twist in the game. I can only guess at what it did to the Sole Survivor.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
